In Honor Bound
by A. Ruth Howe
Summary: A darker Interpretation of the relationship between Treize and Lady Une written from the perspective of the latter. (Updated) Enjoy! R/R


In Honor Bound ****

Gundam Wing is not owned by me_._

Author's note: This is an updated version. I noticed some grammatical errors that needed to be corrected.

In Honor Bound

A. Ruth Howe

****

I was thirteen when the change began. One of many daughters of the noble rank, the child of a count and countess, I lived a life of perpetual lethargy. Never required to act or even consider unless it pertained to my reputation as a noblewoman, this was how I lived for thirteen long immutable years. I was locked away from the world and all it's various realities, harsh or gentle, such knowledge was forbidden to me.

But I had passions; desires to know what was going on around me and to understand it all. When other young ladies where off taking singing lessons and engaging in equestrian pursuits, I was reading and studying about the world, the one that I had little part in. It angered my father the Count, who bade me to act like the other young ladies, know my place in life, and not complicate matters with my own insignificant opinions. He said I marred my good looks by wearing a serious and perpetual academic expression. I was told that no man would marry me if I appeared as headstrong as I had become, for marriage was to be the end-all-be-all of my human existence as a Count's daughter. I was told I would fail the family that I was in honor bound to obey and serve as best I could.

I hated them.

They didn't even try to understand me. They told me I was selfish and unfeeling about the reputation of my family and its society. It did not deter me from my rebellion. So at the age of thirteen, I was ostracized from social activity. The expulsion did not really phase me. I preferred the solitude of my own company and the time to educate myself further on what I did not want to become.

I knew when I was thirteen that I did not want to be like them, and at that age I was given the perfect example, one who embodied my loathing. I was thirteen when he came into my life. The handsome soldier, who caused everyone to flock to him, all the ladies with their ribbons and silks locked to his side by his undeniable charm. He would smile and melt them all with the sparkle in his eye. I saw this all from my bedroom window, since I was forbidden to take part in such social functions. I watched Treize Khushrenada, with his sparkling eyes and beautiful looks represent everything I wanted to escape.

I hated him.

He stayed with my family for a few weeks. As much as I tried to avoid meeting him it could not be helped. I made it clear at our first meeting that I saw right through him; he would know from that first day that I was smart, educated, and that I knew what he was. But he tricked me, and twisted my words with a reserved elegance that was designed for only me to see. I was made to see then that he could see through me as much as I could see through him. Perhaps I never saw through him, but only saw what he had intended me to see. It was impossible to tell with him for he was much shrewder then I had initially believed. 

I was never left alone after that it seemed. In the foyer, in the parlor, in the garden, he was always there. It must have been because I had not thronged to him as the other girls had. I was the challenge. That was why he now hunted me. How was I able to determine this? It was because I thought about it whenever he wasn't with me. I should have seen how he had managed to nest himself within my mind, but I was blinded by a fervent belief in my own resistance. Sometimes he would compliment my looks, or my vigilance to the written word, as I was always reading. Either way I could never escape his attention or perhaps I really didn't want to.

He liked to fight with me; that was what it always came down to whenever we happened to meet unexpectedly. I don't believe it was so unexpected anymore. I believe now that I sought him out as much as he sought me. He had visions of the way things should be, he would tell me of them and I would try to understand. In the end I would only become angry with him and storm away, because I couldn't understand it and understanding was all I had ever really wanted. I didn't want him to go. I couldn't bear the idea that he would leave before I was able to figure him out. But of course it was more than that. That last evening in the parlor before he left, he kissed me on the cheek and told me I had the greatest mind he had ever seen. I was thirteen years old.

I loved him.

The war came to my homeland when I was sixteen years old. The Alliance had finally come to take us. The ladies in their lethargy, were now terrified that their way of life was coming to an end. My brother went off to fight. He was killed within the first three days of battle. My father would not speak of it to me and acted as if there was nothing wrong at all. He thought that I should not concern myself with such things.

I hated him.

I ran away and joined the army. It was clear to me that I had a soldier's spirit and if I hoped to escape the charmed life of the ruling class, I would have to take up the sword and cut my way out. The night was dark when I left. I often wondered when they noticed I was gone, or if they even did. It no longer mattered though. I was free of them. I would never be ruled by anyone again. My homeland was what mattered. I was going to protect it.

We fought for only four months against them, but it seemed so much longer. By the war's end I felt ancient. The Alliance was just too big to defeat. I had been made a colonel for my service in the army. After my commander fell in an early battle, seized with the spirit of the War God, I led the troops to victory in his stead. That was how I became important in the armed forces. That was why I was captured and held by the Alliance after our final defeat, scheduled to be executed. I believed I was going to die.

I was saved by my enemy. The man I had fought against in the war, the Colonel of the Specials Forces that I had squared off against, saved me. He had been the commander that surrounded and decimated my troops. My enemy, Treize Khushrenada, the man that destroyed my homeland's hope of freedom and independence, 

I hated him.

I remember when Treize came through the door of the small cell where I was being kept. He had come to say "good match" and inform me of when and how I was to be executed. I remember the look on his face when he saw that it was I, he hadn't known. His face turned white, then red, then back to white again. I looked up at him once, not betraying anything. I wasn't happy or sad to see him. The only thing I felt was defeat and the ache from the numerous blows to the head I had received from the courteous Alliance soldiers upon my capture.

He saved me then. I was told that I would not be executed and that he would not allow harm to come to me. Yet there was no feeling of relief for me at all. I remember him asking me what I wanted. I told him that I wanted to live and have my revenge against the Alliance. Treize answered that if I did as he told and obeyed him in all things, I would have it.

That was how he became my master. He gave me a new name, Lady Une, something about First Lady. He instructed me to change my appearance. I wore my hair back and glasses to hide my eyes as best I could. For the next three years I served him loyally. He was wonderful to me. He was horrible to me. At times I felt I was going mad under his guidance. Treize terrified and fascinated me. There were times when he told me to get away from him and would threaten me with violence. Other times he was very tender and would touch me intimately until I stopped thinking. There were times where I could not discern who I was and had forgotten what I was doing with him. Slowly I found myself being lost piece by piece beneath his rule. I could see myself everyday becoming him. It was frightening and at times I longed to throw myself out my bedroom window before I saw his reflection in the mirror and not mine. I discovered very early on, that he wasn't what people thought he was. Treize appeared enlightened, brilliant, and ambitious. He was more than that. He was insane. It both did and did not matter to me.

I loved him.

I believe that by the time I met Zechs Merquise, I was mad as well. He was the same age as I; we were both seventeen when we met for the first time. His masked presence made Treize more crazed than anything else, but he showed it to no one save me. It was in the little things that I saw it. Treize would enter into trance-like states while giving me orders and begin talking about his grand design for the world. Many times he would forget specific tasks that he had given me and look at me with a puzzled expression when I told him it was done. At night he would enter my room at the latest hours and make love to me violently. It was not rape, for I wanted him with me. Still, it was not how I wanted it to be. Treize never asked what I wanted either and I never knew if I was giving him what he wanted. I never really did anything but allow him to own me completely in those late hours. Sometimes it was frightening because he seemed angry and possessed when we made love, like I was doing something wrong. He was trying to break me, to rid me of any thoughts of running from him. I was being shown that I could never get away. Treize was obsessed with the idea of possessing me completely. He liked to possess people. Even so, I knew that I was not simply a night's pleasure for him. I knew that he went to no other woman besides me. Still, I was always alone in the morning, in the light of day he never even acknowledged that we had been together. It hurt more than anything did. I would sit in my room and wish Zechs Merquise would leave and never return. So my master would become less deranged and not hurt me.

I hated him.

Then came the time where I wanted nothing more than for Zechs to stay and never leave. It was in the early evening when he came across me alone in the office. Treize had flung his papers about and told me I was useless before storming out. Zechs had seen me crying. He was kind and helped me up from the ground where I had lost control and began weeping. My glasses were off and he was wiping my eyes and listening to my lamentations. His fingers brushed back my hair like a mother to a child and he told me that I would be safe. I felt safe, as though the masked man was illuminating another path of escape for me. Before he left he kissed my lips lightly. I didn't see that he was merely being compassionate to me.

I loved him.

He left the next day. I believe Treize had said something to him to make him leave. That man knew everything that went on in his household. What happened between Zechs and I in his office was probably old news to Treize by the time I saw him next. Treize was very strict about me having contact with other men and rarely allowed me to be alone in the same room with any man other than himself. Zechs said nothing to me before he left. There was no parting glance or expression of strength that would have given me hope for my circumstances. He never even looked at me. I felt abandoned and foolish. I wanted to flee so badly that I would have latched on to anyone who offered it. Zechs had appeared strong and caring, but I had misjudged him. He had left me here alone to go mad with a madman. I wouldn't see him again for years, and I would never look upon him the same way again. The next time I did see him, he knew instantly how I felt.

I hated him.

In the years that followed I learned to accept my fate. One day the voice inside me stopped crying out for escape and freedom. Instead I would hear cries for the blood of the Alliance that Master Treize would soon deliver to me. Everyday I found him staring back at me when I looked in the mirror. Treize had become my whole world now. Whatever I had once been became darkened into nonexistence under the shadow of my lord. It didn't seem to matter either. I was content to serve him for the rest of my days, never to seek escape from him again. He in turn had changed towards me; no longer displaying demented mood swings or one-sided acts of desperate passion. He was civil and courteous as he was the day I met him. I think it was because I was now completely his. There was no danger of my flight; he was no longer hunting me. Was he no longer insane, or was it that we were both now insane? I never thought twice about it. I was in honor bound to serve him.

I loved him.

Then when I was apart from him, there was a splintering. There was another side that would come out and speak with a serene voice that countered the battle hungry voice His Excellency had wrought within me. It was because of his absence that this happened. Who was I if not with Treize Khushrenada? Without him, I was never sure who I was. I was indefinite without him. Everything I did was a reflection of Treize because I had come to know no other way of life. I was in honor bound to be an extension of him. Did he know what he had done to me, that he had driven my mind to the point of shattering? Where was he when I needed him? He wasn't there when I became lost inside my own mind. 

I hated him.

When I awoke from my deathly sleep it was different. It was as it had been the day he met me. I was completely sure of who I was, and what I was. Everything he had told me seemed to make sense now. He wasn't insane, nor was I. I just didn't understand it then. As it was when I was thirteen, I didn't understand, and the knowledge of my incomprehension drove me mad. But I understood now. I knew who he was. I knew who I was.

He came back to me on MOII. There was little time but he came to me anyway. It was during the battle against Libra and White Fang. He was the Field Commander and he had left his troops to be with me for a short time. Finally he had come to me. Those few short hours were the most joyous ones of my life. We made love the way we should have from the beginning, in perfect understanding of one another. It was the moment of beauty I had been waiting for since the day he kissed me in my parent's parlor. I feared nothing now. He told me again before I fell asleep by his side, that I had the greatest mind he had ever seen and that he loved me.

I loved him.

My body felt detached from my mind when I saw the light from the exploding mobile suit that housed my beloved. There should have been a flood of despair and disbelief. But there was none. People around me were angry and cursed the killer Gundam Pilot. I was not angry. They did not understand. The Gundam pilot had not killed Treize. Treize had killed Treize. How perfect. How beautiful.

I loved him.

Now it is over and I am free. I have no master but myself. I have again found who I am and never need fear of losing myself to another's rule. It took great trials in my life, but I am the better for it. I have transcended myself to become something far better than anything I might have been. I am not mad. I am not afraid. I am beyond all things.

I am now Treize Khushrenada, in honor bound to serve his memory. 

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Fin

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